Pastoral, noun: a literary work (such as a poem or play) dealing with shepherds or rural life in a usually artificial manner and typically drawing a contrast between the innocence and serenity of the simple life and the misery and corruption of city and especially court life.

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies: with a triple marriage at the end, what’s not to love? But what happens to those characters after the play is done? What sort of people will they become when they go back to courtly life? Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)’s Pastoral, beautifully directed by Warona Setshwaelo, pictures a world where the forest of Arden is in trouble, and our lovers have very different ideas as to how to solve this problem. With a fitting environmentalist message which brings the Bard’s characters into the 21^st Century, Pastoral is an entertaining and thought-provoking night of theatre.

Let’s see, where did we leave off? Right, so Rosalind married Orlando, Celia (Rosalind’s Cousin) married Oliver (Orlando’s Brother), and they all went back to the dukedom which has been rightfully restored to Rosalind…except for Jacques who wanted to stay in the forest. Now, Orlando writes poetry online, Rosalind is a “professional spy” (is that even a real job?), and no one’s quite sure what Celia and Oliver do, but they both claim to have “real jobs”. When their beloved forest feels like it’s been hit by an earthquake, Rosalind and Orlando go to find Celia and Oliver who were supposed to be working there. Along the way they find Jacques (emotionally charged as ever), and a lumberjack and shepherdess couple who are also working in the forest. Who is causing the destruction of Arden? And what happens if Rosalind and Orlando don’t see eye to eye on what that solution is?

Ho’s script is a beautiful blend of modern text and Shakespeare’s works, pulling from not just As You Like It, but also including a perfectly timed scene from Macbeth. By not only bringing these characters into a modern context, but also seeing them in their new courtly lives, we’re asked to look at them through a more critical lens. The characters themselves acknowledge how they’ve romanticized their initial time in the forest of Arden, and how those memories perpetuate the feeling of the pastoral to their early love stories. In doing so, Ho is asking his audience to then look at nature not as something to only be revered or marvelled at, but also as something we need to actively cultivate, care for, and preserve. To perform this play in the middle of Withrow Park, under the shade of large willow trees only furthers this messaging while adding a pastoral quality to the act of attending the performance itself. The parallel between Orlando’s desire to write as a form of activism and Ho’s writing Pastoral is certainly not lost on me, and it makes Jeff Yung’s joke about getting confused for Ho all the funnier.

Pastoral has a small but very mighty cast giving these iconic characters new life. Yung stars as Orlando with Reese Cowley as Rosalind. Yung’s charisma shines through his character, while Cowley gives Rosalind just the right amount of moxie to make her feel familiar. jonnie lombard gives Celia a vivacity throughout the performance, and carries that spark through to their role as Becky. Norman Yeung’s Oliver still had a touch of the headstrong character we know from Shakespeare, yet Yeung gives him a lighter side as well. I also love when Yeung comes out as Lumberjack Jack; I’m still laughing about him singing the lumberjack song for his entrance. Asher Rose’s Jacques is the heart of Pastoral and Rose does the role incredible justice. They give a passionate performance which resonates throughout the production.

I nearly leapt out of my chair when Jacques and Orlando began to do the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech at the end of Pastoral: it’s such a stand out moment in Shakespeare’s canon, and so I was thrilled to hear it evoked again in this production. Yet Jeff Ho takes the Bard’s metaphor one step further, not just relating these cyclical stages of life to humanity, but to the universe, its creation, and our place within it. It serves as a firm reminder of how the planet has existed long before us, and will continue to do so for eons after. Because, as Carl Sagan reminds us “The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the Universe to know itself.”

Pastoral runs in Withrow Park until August 30. For more information and tickets, visit: https://shakespeareintheruff.com/

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Cover Photo: Reese Cowley and Jeff Yung. Photo by Mike McPhaden.

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Definition of Pastoral found here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pastoral

Carl Sagan quote found here: https://www.planetary.org/articles/were-made-of-starstuff-what-does-that-mean

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